Month: January 2019

Freefall Cover Reveal

The countdown to FREEFALL continues. February 5th the book will be out, but: take a look at that cover!

Gorgeous, isn’t it?

You might notice that unlike the first book’s cover, this time Mark’s flying in broad daylight, with only a bit of white blurring around him. That could mean a serious change in magic’s secretive place in the world… or it could just mean he’s got someone to raise a blizzard to hide him. Hmm…

Something you can’t see, because it’s on the cover’s back, is my other tagline:

“Spellkeepers at war – this city’s not big enough for the four of them.”

(Which was why I wrote in a few more.)

My plan with FREEFALL has always been more. THE HIGH ROAD was Mark and Angie being young and barely able to use the magic, and willing to throw themselves at danger because Angie couldn’t see any other choice.

FREEFALL is Mark able to handle the magic, more or less. And he’s seen the cost of this fight, and he has a plan and a set of allies… but he’s still just nineteen, and all too aware of how he’s been more hesitant than Angie all his life.

And now I get to bring in some of the real dangers that the Spellkeeper world can escalate to. Rafe is back, still two steps ahead of Mark at most things, and he’s got another gravity belt (how?) and plans bigger than taking over one gang. There’s some of the history of possession magic, and moments that show just how nasty it can get. There are new characters, like Sasha (you haven’t even met Sasha yet!), who’s the last thing you’d expect in a story like this.

And of course, Olivia Nolan. Now that she’s Mark’s ally—on her own terms—you’ll see her being an experienced spellkeeper (hey, she’s the only one who knows the word!), a businesswoman who rewrites the rules, and a strategist with her own schemes and allies for tracking their mutual enemy. I have to keep reminding myself she’s a few years too young to be called “Grandma Badass,” but she’s not your typical urban fantasy character.

One other thing: I have a guest blog on some of the ways writers can see the world and the people around us. It’s over at Rising Shadow: https://www.risingshadow.net/articles/guest-posts/906-guest-post-a-writer-s-eye-by-ken-hughes

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Freefall in February — Launching

Happy New Year!

It’s the traditional day for reflecting, plannning, and promising… followed by the traditional month of backsliding, of course.

In the spirit of breaking that cycle:

FREEFALL, Book Two of Spellkeeper Flight, will be launched on February 5th. After long months of tweaking, the book is ready, the cover’s being set up (stay tuned!), and I’m looking forward to sharing it with the world.

In fact, I have a total of three things to share for the new year:

  • First, I will soon be offering THE HIGH ROAD for free, to help new readers find an easy start into the series. (Though I have to say, you’ll find it’s the only thing that’s “easy” for Mark and Angie.)
  • Second is that news about FREEFALL, complete with a sample below that takes up right after THE HIGH ROAD’s closing excerpt cut off. (I’ve cut out one name, for readers who haven’t discovered who “the killer” is yet.)
  • But also, there’s another excerpt here and another announcement: Book Three, GROUNDED, will be released this summer as well.

Now: the FREEFALL sample at the end of THE HIGH ROAD had left Mark diving back into his enemy’s building at the moment the police turned away, hoping to seize the computer in the office. So:

Sample from FREEFALL

The power lay behind him. His head twisted around, he saw the cop sitting up, gun swinging up in her still-possessed hands.

Too late. Mark tumbled through the office doorway and bounced off a desk, careening to a stop against the wall. He tottered sideways, trying to find cover, but the room barely gave him a few steps either way. No other doors, and no windows.

He waited, trapped. And yet… the cop didn’t close in. He could hear her shuffling to her feet, and felt the puppetmaster’s magic starting her toward the door, but so slowly. She could have put a bullet in him by now, or called for other cops.

He thought of how fast the killer’s control had jumped between the two police officers before, too quick for either of them to realize what had happened… and, he was always trying to spy out the secrets of the belt’s magic…

“You can’t shoot me, can you?” Mark laughed. The sound came out hoarse, and he still moved aside from the doorway. If he was wrong, if the killer was ready to explain away Mark’s body and find other ways to learn their magic—

He sensed the cop still edging toward the doorway. Mark flexed his fingers, praying he could grab and strike before the enemy jumped through that touch. The smell of paint pressed at his nose.

The lights went out.

A flash of memory came: Nolan outside another of these offices, promising If you need a distraction, I’ll freeze the power lines. He blinked wildly, fighting to push the flood of shadows back and make out where the outlines in the room had been.

Over what had to be the police radio came a sharp “What the hell? Bennie?”

“I’m alright!” the possessed woman answered.

Mark blinked harder. His enemy was giving him a moment to work, not calling in the other cop. But that other cop could decide to rush in at any moment. So… there, that blocky shape sitting beside the table’s leg would be the computer he’d come for.

One quick step and he reached behind the box to rip a handful of cables from its back, then snapped the last wire away, half-expecting to hear sparks popping.

Behind him, the cop moved in.

Mark twisted around to glimpse the woman stepping toward him, her empty hand reaching out—closing in to touch, ready to grab my mind! He flung himself backward, and his arm swung out into a scooping motion and slammed into the table.

Pain shot through his knuckles and his injured shoulder, but his magic surged, and he heard the whoosh and the clamor of flying objects and a great crash as he flung the near-weightless table at the cop and it glanced off her to clatter against the wall.

It did little more than make her flinch back, but that gave him the moment he needed to stumble to his feet and snatch up the desktop computer, lightening it too. She was already turning back toward him, still blocking the doorway.

He raised the computer like a shield and charged.

He slammed into her and flung her back, and burst on through the doorway to finally stretch his steps into a leaping run that swept him away from her across the room and barely aimed low enough to slide his head under the front doorway to dart through and out.

Sample from GROUNDED

Mark Petrie took another glance back up the police station corridor, but with all the cops moving about he couldn’t even see the door they’d taken Olivia Nolan and her lawyers through.

He reached out with the magic in his belt again to search for her. The weather energy Nolan carried was a primal force his gravity power could barely feel at the best of times… and using any magic now stretched his frayed nerves and made the dull, shifting roar of the police station’s daily crowd beat against his head. At least he could sense Henry’s own gravity belt up in the room they’d taken him to.

“We should be done with him soon.”

Mark snapped his head forward again. Was that satisfaction in the rail-thin detective’s voice, about how Mark’s cousin had been shaken by all the treacherous power that he had to hush up? Shh, don’t say it.

–That’s as far as I can take Chapter One without veering straight into spoilers. But there’s a reason the chapter is called “Nine Points of the Law.”

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